Plain Jane

Not-so-sketchy in Philly. It’s nice to work out a storefront design on a background that looks closer to the site’s next permutation than the derelict facade that’s really here. The plain jane storefront is cleaned up and wearing colors amenable to the next occupant. (I should not have included the blade sign; it’s bound to change.) Next up: back and forthing about window heights, visibility, building codes, etc. That's where having a sketch of the bigger context and a site plan helps.

visual note taking A

Observe three or more situations described as point-of-sale (POS), where a retail transaction is made. Take note: If and how is the transaction space illuminated? What type and size of surface is provided for the transaction--if any? What form does the digital component of the transaction take? (ie., paper receipt, on-line documentation, bank card access, none) Has the overall ambience around the transaction been addressed? All VNT must include a thumbnail floor plan.
Blind contour: menu board/bar/counter 

can't get started (without you)

Kitchen test
by happs
on Sketchfab

Click on the kitchen and you can rotate and zoom in on it. Sketchfab is like Pinterest for 3D modelers to share manipulable, virtual objects with anyone who has a browser. But the object still has to be modeled! How to get started? Temple Grandin makes a case for tactile involvement in design:

"One of the things I’ve noticed, been involved in my industry designing things for over 25 years. The people who are really good at drafting on the computer are the people who were good at drafting by hand. People coming in now doing computer-aided drawing are doing terrible drawings, they make lots of errors, they leave out perceptual detail, they don’t see it. The errors made in their drawings are the errors that the very worst students in my design class make; these are the students that have no visualization capability. I don’t think the mouse is hooked up to the brain like the hand is. You don’t make some of these mistakes if you actually draw the thing by hand. Let’s say for example, you’re drawing a cattle stockyard, you’ve got a whole lot of gates in it; one draftsman I saw, using computer-aided drawing, had 25-foot gates built in it. You can’t have a 25-ft. long gate; the leverage will make it come off the hinges. Now if you take a compass, you’ll see that you can’t do it. I’m seeing more and more mistakes being made in construction because it’s getting too abstract.

I visited with Irene Pepperberg, whose parrot can learn categories. To learn them, he had to manipulate the objects; looking wasn’t enough for him to understand. I can really relate to that. Touching gives an understanding you don’t get just by looking." 2000 interview with Temple Grandin in the Harvard BRAIN, bold emphasis mine. 
Drawing by hand and rough modeling with cardboard and clay are excellent ways to strengthen one's visualization capacity. 

you ain't seen nothin' yet

Systems theorist Fritjof Capra, in his book on the science of Leonardo da Vinci, argues that our most creative insights emerge from states of uncertainty and confusion according to a process of "emergence", the creation of new forms of order out of chaos and confusion. So our pals at the Albany Bulb may be at the cusp of a life-changing insight, about to radically alter their beings. Or not. 
Earthquakes changing landforms changing waterways finds a parallel to hair growth patterns where the skin has scarred, or the way a form is perceived in a drawing after a lost period of erasures and scribbling. Leonardo had an ear for the harmony of these orders; he documented and compared phenomena throughout his life. Conceding our wisp of consequence on the celestial time line, he wrote "nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience."

struck

I like the way it feels while switching from plan to elevation to perspective to photograph; measuring units, rotating models, erasing chalk and applying color. A most serene state arrives via drawing. My brother had a stroke about a month ago. As in many stroke victims, the left carotid artery was compromised, and he lost some ability to find and pronounce words, along with other functions normally governed by the left brain. Many art students are aware of Betty Edwards' exercises. Temple Grandin and Jill Bolte Taylor also have stories to make us aware of the gifts of those whose brains use a different hierarchy. My brother has been ambidextrous since childhood, a hands-on problem solver, a crazy talker, god-respecting and a musician to boot. He's infamous for making folks guess what tune he's tapping out on the table. It's a comfort to think there are many unusual paths trod thru the grass of his brain that will come in handy during recovery. He and his ilk may yet rule the planet.

gimme scale 2

Take a look at this floor plan. Absent close reading, it seems like a nice idea. Once in the door (at the bottom,) one can choose between watching some big-screen content in the lounge/snack area at the right, or sitting down at one of the tables at the left. The smaller spots on the floor must be the chairs.
This document does give information about scale. Someone had dutifully measured the room and the bookcase and notated it on the plan. 
However, someone else decided what the room would contain, and without looking at the size of the wall on the plan, sketched out their idea while engaged in some wishful visual thinking!! 
When they called and sent me their plan sketch, I looked at the relation of furniture placement first. I, too, began to visualize a room based on what the rectangles-as-furniture recalled from my mind's cache of Lounges I Have Drawn...until I checked the tiny size annotations. The dream ended quickly. My client awakened a different way when they visited the actual space, and phoned in a panic, "I just saw the site -- it's TINY!!!"
If one looks closely, the room has less than 130 sf. If all that furniture were to fit in the room, the largest of the chairs would have a 5" seat, and the sofa would be less than one foot deep. Bring in the dwarves...

annotation

Progress sketch of nuclear material

storage rods for Mother Jones 

illustration, ©J.F.Mahoney

A bright young electronics engineer is in town for conferences and study. He and his colleagues design and create objects that can only be seen with an electron microscope! A different kind of virtual viewing, this tiny 3-dimensionality! I asked him if he takes notes on his laptop or on paper. He said back in Japan he takes notes using a keyboard, but here in the US, he started using pencil on lined paper while he was first settling in, because his baggage was delayed. When he reviewed his handwritten notes, the thinking provoked by seeing his own handwriting felt "more creative". He decided to take notes by hand the whole summer.

fresh, green, organic, unprocessed

Those were some of the keywords of a look-and-feel assignment for a retail food service client. The job was not to redesign the store (in-house designers would do that) but to create a visual from those keywords in an overall impression of the store. Vague direction, vague pictures. Fresh blood for the design crew. Happy job.

long lost geometry

B Baker was in town this week and we talked about phantom bikes, as in phantom limbs. He does a double-take whenever a bike goes past that looks like the Bianchi he lost 30 years ago. In my university town, bicycles are all over the place, like visual static. My trusty Diamondback served me for 20+ years until it was stolen. 2 years later, as I was leaving a bookstore, the familiar frame geometry of one parked bike jumped out from the static. An identifying repair weld on the frame confirmed: MINE! And unlocked! What strikes me is that 2 years after the loss, a particular frame geometry was seared in my memory, like the silhouette of one's beloved.

what's wrong with this picture?

At lunch the other day, an urban developer pondered, "What's with this designing on computer? I call our architect to ask what his thinking is on the changes we're making. He sends me a computer drawing. All I want to see is a sketch, a drawing of the facade! We're not getting anywhere."
What's wrong with this picture? They both want to move the design along. The developer wants feedback on how a recent discussion is playing out in the design. The architect is taking his client's commentary and implementing it in the building system. Yet the drawing-as-reply did not scratch the question's itch.

Is this a case of media preference, like preferring handwritten notes to typed? Kindle to hardcover? But isn't more information carried by handwriting than typing?Drawings in this post are random examples and bear no relation to the architect or developer in this narrative.

this magic moment

I've worked on both sides of the digital model debut. Before 3d modeling software was prevalent, the designers who could sketch their ideas freehand or with loosely constructed perspectives seemed to be in the minority. Another good indicator of visual thinking fluency was rough study modeling with cardboard and scissors. When designers who weren't sketchers themselves were shown how their plans become volumes relating in space, there was often a pause of disconnect. Maybe it was 'cause the right brain hadn't known what the left brain was up to. I suspect the designer was reintegrating the visually modeled reality with what had been in the mind's eye. Always a rich moment. Usually what followed was some kind of improvement.
3d modeling software has made that kind of integration -- or facsimile thereof -- possible for many who might never have learned to sketch in perspective or construct quick models. Hopefully it has enriched the design process while bringing earlier feedback on energy calculations and materials' cost.